Pretty as it was, however, enough is enough. It’s supposed to be spring!

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So, this morning, I had to get out the big guns. You see, the weekend of the knitting retreat, I vowed to finish my thrummed mittens; because if I finished them, then spring would come and I wouldn’t get to wear them! That weekend was January weather; within three days, it was up to 50 degrees. It worked!

But I hadn’t had the mittens out since then. So I wore them this morning, and even put them to good use:

Here they are before being be-snowed:

So, having worn them, I firmly expect spring-like weather soon.

(These are thrummed mittens from a Fleece Artist kit, purchased at Loopy Yarns in Chicago, and I l-o-o-v-e them. Neither of my daughters ever wears mittens, so I made these for me, especially after my hands got so cold cross-country skiing this winter. Both daughters wandered over as I was working on the second mitten, tried on the finished one, and said, “Are these for me? No? Will you make me a pair too?” Love at first hand hug. They are so warm and soft.

See Deb’s blog for a photo of ‘air thrumming’ — you know, like air guitar, only different! — and a picture of the inside-out mittens looking like Mutant Muppets. Here, in this thumbnail, the mitten insides just look like some sort of vermin. Click if you really want to see them bigger. They’re next to what I fondly called my thrum bucket.)

So that’s one (or two, rather, especially since I reknit/rethrummed one mitten) of my retreat FOs, as I promised to show you. The second FO was the springy bling I showed off yesterday, from a beaded knitting kit called “Jewels”, by Swallow Hill Creations. (Purchased at Bonnie’s in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on the way to the LAST knitting retreat.) The kit makes a necklace and a bracelet (or three bracelets); this is just the bracelet, obviously, though I’ve already threaded ALL of the gazillion beads so now I have to decide — matching necklace, or two bracelets? Could be three bracelets for me and my two daughters, all of whom like green!

When I was at Bonnie’s I bought these incredibly cute (and short) size 0000 needles for this project:

(Shown with notepad and pen, for scale and amusement.)

However, on getting to the retreat and reading the pattern, this particular project is knit side to side in garter stitch, placing a bead between stitches, alternating one row beaded and one row plain. 45 (bracelet) or 90 (necklace) stitches with beads between, won’t fit on those teeny little needles! Fortunately, I had a 000 circular Addi Turbo with me which was way long, but usable. So I could make my sparkles. I also found that threading the beads takes longer than knitting them. (Next time, I am conning bribing persuading the Gothlet to do it; she loves that kind of thing!) Lastly, I found that no matter how much you try to mix and assort the beads, the small ones go to the bottom and take up less space; so that there are more small ones at the end. Ah, well.

The third (and last) FO?

Well, I fell down on my blogging responsibilities. My brother’s belated Christmas present, the fingerless mitts made from Yarn Nerd yarn in the Printed Circuitboard colorway. (Yes, there was a definite reason I picked that yarn and that colorway, besides the fact that he likes green too!) I finished them, stopped in Minneapolis and gave them to him. Didn’t take the camera in the house when I stopped by. Here’s what they looked like the last time I photographed them:

So imagine those finished, and on guy hands. If he wears them down here sometime, I’ll see if I can get an action shot.

Whew! And I’ve even knit since then! But not documented progress or FOs.

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Well, I’ll leave you with signs of hope for spring, at least.

The same daffodils, first spotted last weekend and virtually buried in snow last night and this morning?

Here they were late this afternoon:

; last night again, for comparison:

and six days ago when I first spotted them:
And if you look hard, the trees and bushes know it’s spring. The buds I showed you way back at the beginning are the neighbors’ lilacs, due to bloom in six, seven weeks.

Great snow pics! We usually get snow when the forsythia and daffodils are out (but that won’t happen for another month here). I thought that was yarn nerd yarn! I made socks out of his peat bog colorway, very similar except no blue and a bit of brownish.

Wow, what a nice, newsy post! I really would love to see you taking those snowflake photos. I’m glad no one called in the authorities to approach you softly and speak to you very slowly… “ma’am, are you feeling OK? Is there someone we can call for you?”

The insides of the mittens look like something from a science fiction movie. I’ll bet they’re warm, though!

My camera is an Olympus Stylus 760, 7.1 megapixel, which I admit I bought because it was a good price at Sam’s and because it said “ALL-WEATHER” and was reasonably small, but big enough to feel comfortable in my hand. It’s been a great and reliable camera, with lots of features for a point-and-shoot, easy to use!

The close-ups are with a super-macro setting, but are then cropped on the computer, which is possible because of the high resolution images. I do recommend it for almost anyone.